August 2020

The rifled military arm was far from a new design by the time of the Civil War. The smoothbore muskets still dominated as the military arms because of the difficulty in loading a rifled infantry arm quickly or repeatedly. To be effective, a rifle required a tight-fitting projectile to achieve the necessary compression and take the spin afforded by the rifled barrel. The problem was that once the barrel heated up, the tight-fitting bullet no longer loaded as quickly or easily.

Taking a practical feature from the frontier, it was discovered that a slightly smaller bullet wrapped in a greased patch rammed home much more easily. The use of the patched round ball also gave rise to a distinctive characteristic of the frontier hunting rifle, the patch box on the rifle stock. In the patch box one could easily store a supply of greased patches (or grease) and keep them free of dirt and contaminants that would normally stick to such a material stored elsewhere. It also held various necessaries such as tools, spare flints, or a spare cone if the rifle had a percussion lock. The patch box is still a feature found on flint and percussion “American mountain” black powder hunting rifles, but in terms of any military application it proved short-lived.

The United States was quick to adopt and improve upon the new ballistics technology but with a nod to its frontier heritage, it was slower to adopt the new trends in military arms design, particularly where elimination of the patch box was concerned. TheM1841 percussion rifle had a large brass patch box in the stock. The Maynard tape primer M1855 rifle still had a patchbox when production began in 1857, as did the last generation of the three band M1855 rifle-muskets in production through early-1861. Strong consideration was given to continuing the patchbox for the new U.S. M1861 rifle musket; a prototype version with a round lid was proposed but never produced. The following account from Claud E. Fuller’s classic The Rifled Musket, (1959) lends insight into the discussions which occurred during 1860, just prior to the Civil War:

From the best information the board can obtain from officers using the rifle musket it appears the patchbox is very convenient and useful for carrying a greased rag or grease. The report of inspectors general indicates that the same difficulty has been found in our service that has been reported in the British service in India with regard to the drying up of the grease used in the cartridge as a

lubricator for the bullet of the rifle musket; and as the use of a lubricating material is very important for accurate shooting with these arms, the Board is of the opinion

Gun Works, Inc.

that the patchbox should be retained, and they recommend the KEEPING TRADITION ALIVE adoption of the pattern presented from Springfield Armory (marked The muzzleloading community is diverse and en- A 117) as the neatest and cheapcompasses a broad range of interests and profesest plan offered. Major Hagner sions, brought together by a shared passion for all desires to record his dissent to the things blackpowder. From re-enactors to modern above recommendation...the arm hunting and competitive shooting, DIXIE GUN fabricated for the general service WORKS’ cataloghas been a staple for generashould consist of as few parts an tions of blackpowder enthusiasts. Our 2020 [sic] be as little costly as possicatalog has the world’s largest selection of ble to fit for effective service. The blackpowder replica arms, accessories, anpatchbox in the stock is costly tique parts, muzzleloader hunting and sport and cannot be of general use in shooting equipment. the ranks as grease...renders the arm untidy to handle if so used. Should marksmen on special service in deliberate firing find it best to have an additional supply of grease on hand it can be carried with equal convenience in a box detached from the gun and of little cost. The patchbox has not been applied to the rifle musket in any European service, as far

DIXIE GUN WORKS, INC.

as known to me although the cartridges used by them are not superior to our own.

Ultimately, the exigencies of the Civil War and its increased demand for small arms dictated that cost and additional production time necessary to add a patch box was no longer desirable, at least on U.S. model rifle muskets. The projectile or (for the Enfield) the cartridge paper itself was lubed instead. The patch box was still found on commercially made military rifles of proprietary design such as the Sharps rifle even though they were breechloaders with no need of a greased patch. The M1841 continued to see service throughout the Civil War; despite the design being 20 years old, it was far from obsolete.

Craig L. Barry was born in Charlottesville, Va. He holds his BA and Masters degrees from the University of North Carolina The (Charlotte). Craig served Watchdog Civil War Quarterly as Associate Editor and Editor from 2003–2017. The Watchdog published books and columns on 19th-century material and donated all funds from publications to battlefield preservation. He is the author of several books including The Civil War Musket: A Handbook for Historical Accuracy (2006, 2011), The Unfinished Fight: Essays on Confederate Material Culture Vol. I and II (2012, 2013) and three books (soon to be four) in the Suppliers to the Confederacy series on English Arms & Accoutrements, Quartermaster stores and other European imports.

During the war, soldiers loved to read, especially during the downtime in camp. Newspapers, letters from home (the favorite of most), the Bible, and various dime novels populated the literary menu for the voracious consumers. Dime novels, which gained in popularity in this country during the years leading up to the war, skyrocketed in the number of new titles introduced in 1861. This trend continued through 1865 and beyond.

Thanks to the ongoing efforts of Villanova University’s Falvey Memorial Library, researchers can access dime novels online at https://dimenovels.org, and peruse various issues beginning in 1852, and running through 2019. This site serves, as indicated in the name—Dime

Novel Bibliography—as a collection point, which indexes dime novels

held in several different repositories. Villanova staff continue their digitization efforts, so bookmark this site and check back periodically, and visit them on Facebook and Twitter; follow them on either social media platform to receive updates more quickly

Begin your journey at the homepage (pictured above) and request a free account for full access to the site. Various filtering options exist; this writer decided to use the ‘by year’ method to quickly access issues from the war years.

Researchers will profit in reading the same material many soldiers viewed 160 years ago. Even the fictional accounts can add meaning to the thoughts of the soldiers, and assist in better understanding the world they lived in. On the non-fiction

front, some issues distributed during the war carried information on different Federal officers. For example, an issue dated November 14, 1862, offered an installment in the

online at

‘Men of the Time’ series, which featured background stories on Generals Hooker, Rosecrans, Grant, McClernand, and Ormsby Mitchell. Editors included illustrations of some of these men, like the shown image of Grant.

Next month, we will investigate additional primary sources. Until then, good luck in researching the Civil War!

August 2020 CWN

19th CENTURY LIVING HISTORY! James Country

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